Twenty-five years after 9/11, we'll examine what government learned from that day and whether it's keeping those lessons alive

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1:02Max, thank you so much for joining me. It's really great to have you on the show. Kerry, it's always a pleasure to be with you, and I look forward to the conversation. Well, let me first wish you happy birthday. Today is the partnership's 25th birthday, founded actually on 9-11. Thank you. It's hard to believe. I kind of would like to be 25 again. So that's a date that I've been long in history, but it's fun to have that as an anniversary for the partnership. Almost old enough to come off your parent's health care program. Yes, as I also do medical appointments for my college-aged kids. That is a day I guess good and bad. Well, let's think back to 9-11 because the government that we have today is very different from the government we had on September 10, 2001, for lots of reasons. And the partnership has watched that closely over the last 25 years. When you think back over the process, where do you think the government diagnosed problems correctly? And where do you think they got the diagnosis wrong?

2:04So it was clearly a critical transformative moment. And it I think really arises from the purpose of our government, which is fundamentally to deal with our biggest problems that we face as a society. It's the only institution that has the public imprimatur and taxpayer resources behind it. And I think the primary lesson that we learned from 9-11 was that we weren't safe. We were oblivious to the large and consequential risks that we faced as a nation. And those risks had changed and we had been used to two oceans protecting us and they no longer did in a modern world. And so I think the most important lesson was that we actually weren't safe and we did need government to be there in a way that it hadn't been on 9-11. And that required changes. And one of the very rare commissions that actually produced something that was both thoughtful and resulted in real changes, the 9-11 commission.

3:08And their analysis I think is the best that's out there. As they identified, the biggest challenge was not the lack of warning. The biggest challenge was the inability of our system of government to connect the dots. And that came from a variety of sources, including the fact that President Bush's senior national security people had not been in place or in place fast enough to understand the systems and develop the relationships. But I think that was the most prominent ill that was diagnosed. And I do think that we saw, especially the intelligence community, change in some pretty consequential ways. And if you ask me on the plus side, the creation of the DNI at that point, I think was a very strong model of looking for a way to create connectivity amongst existing organizations. I think the creation of DHS was not such a great idea because there, the model was to create something new and to push together all these organizations.

4:11I think the DNI model was the smarter investment for us nationally. But anyway, more to say on this, I should add that just on the anniversary point, we were doing our first launch event in the capital on 9-11 in Joe Lieberman and Dan Burton, then the chairs of the relevant committees in the House and the Senate were sponsoring it. And then Dan Burton ran in and said it, plain hit that the World Trade Center, we had to evacuate immediately. So this is very relevant to the work of the partnership. And I wouldn't be alive today, but for the fact that the folks who took down the plane over Pennsylvania did so. I was in the Pentagon that day. And so I share your emotional connection, I think, back to it. It's still a hard day to talk about. But let's talk about those reforms. A lot of the connecting the dots that you mentioned, the reforms were focused on people. 25 years on, we have a lot more technology. How are you seeing the people and the technology threads come together

5:13for better or for worse? So I'm going to say something that is I think quite strong and I do so with full intent. I think we're unfortunately less safe today than we were pre 9-11 so on September 10. Because of not the technology issues but the people issues. So yes, technology has improved its capabilities and we're watching that across the world. But at the end of the day, the people pieces are the most important because technology is a tool not as of now a truly independent actor. Maybe that changes with AI etc. But we're not there yet. And I think your proposition that the people issues were the most important is one I subscribe to entirely. And I think it begins with leaders and one of the things that I believe is fundamental to any organizations effectiveness and certainly the public sector is that you have confidence and

6:15character as the touchstones for the people who are in charge. And you want that across the board, more than anything else than those in charge. And frankly, we do not have that at the senior most levels of this administration. And that puts us at significant risk. And that cascades from the talent that was pushed out to the morale challenges that we have to the failure to respect expertise. You know, the list is long and scary. But we are in a more dangerous world than we were on 9-11. And we are less I think able right now to deal with those risks. Max Steyer is the president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service. Max thinking even beyond national security, the ability to turn data into information has become more and more of a focus of the government. We have so much in data and not so much information. How would you evaluate the government's ability now to actually act on data, whether in the national security space or in public service,

7:18delivery or anything? So I think you put your finger on something that is so vital. You know, when we talk about AI, you can't actually disentangle that from data. The AI is only as good as the data that is available and it's training on. And I do think that there is phenomenal opportunity for providing better service to the public in all realms, so national security and beyond. But I better use of data. I think, you know, once again, there are some definite bright spots in our in our government, but we are taking steps back in a lot of places where data is being shut down, like either a collection is not happening or it's not being offered to the public or it's not being acted upon. So I think the opportunity is quite large to provide better ROI for the for the American public, but we're not taking advantage of it in the ways that we should. Understanding that there also has to be guardrails because as you say, the ability to use data to understand things also raises risks for, you know, privacy issues and bad actors that we have to

8:25be cognizant of as well. And we now have a whole new level of, you know, issue associated with AI in terms of, you know, every tool can be used for good and for bad and and part of government's responsibility is to use tools responsibly and to ensure that that the referees are in place and to make sure that they're being used responsibly for everybody. One other piece of the reforms was really to get agencies to talk across their agency silos. You mentioned the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which was putting a whole bunch of agencies in a room together so that they would hopefully talk together better. But many of the challenges that government is dealing with now don't sit within a single federal agency. So when you think about cross agency collaboration, are we better at it or worse? So I think yours is a profound insight. You know, governments there to deal with problems. The problem set of today requires multi agency. I would argue multi level of government and

9:26multi branch, you know, Congress and the executive response and sometimes multi sector. So what I describe as the enterprise perspective, taking approach across all those boundaries is fundamental to good results to solve for those problems. I do not think we are all that much better at that process than we've been in the past. There are places where there are improvements and I think in the intelligence community is an example of that. My own view and it comes back to you to earlier point, which is it's all about the people. I think one way we would see better cooperation across entities is if we had mobility requirements for leadership and for a junior talent. You see that in the military, the joint duty requirement as an example to be a flag officer. I do think that is actually a very smart way to create relationship. The tendency is to think for structural reform. That's like the creation of DHS. And I think the challenge with that is that the energy involved in trying to achieve that is so large and difficult to accomplish within

10:31a single or even multiple administrations that it becomes a distraction from things that actually would produce better integration like the mobility of talent. So that's why I would emphasize that over other attempted structural reform. And one other thing here, the partnership is focused on trust and government for a long time, how the public responds to those kinds of questions. Certainly in the post 9-11 era, trust was immediately much higher than then it's been since. What are you seeing when you look at the trust measurements and what do you think might really turn the needle? So again, a great observation. And I think the reason why you saw trust increase was because I think the American people were reminded in a vivid and horrifying way why they needed effective government by the attacks of 9-11. And I think we are unfortunately in not this exact same kind of moment, but at least the moment that has echoes of it because we're seeing loss of services in our government. And in today's world, whether it's the fires everywhere

11:36or measles that at 35-year-plus high or foodborne illnesses, etc. I think we're seeing our government in some sense the chickens are coming home to roost. The mismanagement of our government is leading to consequences that the public is experiencing. I think this is a moment for historic civic education so that the public as it was true in 9-11 can be reminded of why an effective government is so important to their safety, health, and prosperity. And hopefully that energy can be directed at political leaders who will actually embrace smart reforms of our government, which there are many. And that is the focus of the partnership for public service right now is how do we create a government for a new era? One that will actually deliver better in today's world results for the people. Well, we started our conversation today with a happy birthday to you, but as you look towards maybe the partnerships next 25 years, what do we need to be focused on in terms of building that productive trust-worthy government for the future? Well, the first proposition

12:42is that it's a forever job. You don't like people talk about reinventing government, but I'm like there is no organization that doesn't want to spend as good for the next 30 years. It doesn't happen. It's a constant learning and that requires people at the top who see that as their job. So I begin with leadership and believe that we need to change our standard of leadership. We have this bizarre notion that we can focus on the civil service and trying to make it accountable and not pay any attention to the 4,000 now way more than 4,000 political leaders and not hold them accountable. And you're going to be fine when those political appointees represent four or five layers on top of those career civil servants. We should have one standard of expectation of confidence and character and whether your political career you need to meet it and you need to have performance plans and accountability to do so. I think that's the most important change we should see in our government. There are plenty of other things that will help get us there. 25 years to me is way too long of a look forward. I don't even know what's going to happen in three years. Our world is changing so

13:45fast, but I do know that having really great leaders in place that are committed to the health of the organizations that are responsible for will create a group of people who will solve for those problems as they come up and take advantage of the opportunities that are there to do better. Max Steyer is president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service. Max, thanks so much for joining me today. Thank you so much. We'll post this interview at federalnewsnetwork.com slash federal drive. Subscribe to the federal drive for ever you get your podcasts. What does it take to drive transformational change in large mission driven organizations? In this episode of Lessons in Leadership, former Treasury Fiscal Assistant Secretary David Lebrick sits down with WAPA CEO Shane Canfield to explore the answer to that question, drawing on nearly four decades of public service. Lebrick shares insights on how to maintain employee trust and accountability while striving for strategic leadership and operational excellence. He discusses his biggest lessons learned from modernizing major government systems and how he

14:46worked to break down silos and build high performing teams all while staying rooted in character and integrity. Hello and welcome to the Lessons in Leadership podcast. I'm your host Shane Canfield CEO of WAPA. Today I'm joined by David Lebrick, former Fiscal Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, the department's most senior career position where he spent nearly four decades help oversee and modernize the federal government's financial infrastructure including payments collecting, debt financing and cash management. David, welcome and thank you for being here. It's a real pleasure to be here. So let's jump right in. What does it actually take to drive transformational change inside the federal government and related, Treasury is obviously a huge organization. What did that teach you about leadership as you drove these changes? Sure, I think one of the things that you realize at time is that change and transformational change

15:48is very difficult but it is doable and I think sometimes we don't think that we can do big things in government and yet we can. I think over the course of my career I was enormously fortunate to do work with some of the really really wonderful people, some of the most preeminent people in government over the course of the last 35 years and from them you learn a lot of really important lessons about leadership. I think early in my career what I would tell you is that I was very much new and my interacted with political appointees as a civil servant that you're really an advisor and I had some really wonderful experiences advising some of really great people. My second job at Treasury for example was as a special assistant to Jay Powell. I knew I was not going to be the most smartest person in the room or the expert on many things that were going on but what I did know is that I had a very good understanding about what it meant to navigate in government. Also what it meant to advise and provide options and analysis to decision makers. As you move up in your career

16:51and you actually take on more operational responsibility you find out that you are a decision maker and when you are a decision maker you know I had a very good framework that I used throughout my career which is you as a well-edged organization the leadership had to think about three very distinct things. One was thinking strategically about where the organization was going not just about where it was going tomorrow and the next day but actually into the future. The second area was that you really had to be able to deliver in the operational excellence. So if you're responsible for providing a service or a product you can do that well and you need to think very purposefully about that. The third area is really about people and about how you attract good people, how you retain good people, how you incent good people and how you really treat people. So throughout my career I had an opportunity to see people be very effective in all three of those areas. So when it came time to do transformational change that model worked very well. I would also say that what you learn very early on is that regardless is that you as an

17:55individual it takes the ability to work collectively and collaboratively with a lot of people. And so some of the things that I did for example which were cross-government you realize that you really didn't have authority over many of the people that you were asking to do something different. But if you had character and competence you could actually have trust. And so I think when people looked and said this is someone who has capability and they have character they will actually go and reduce the friction and actually making change. And so those collaborative relationships that those that ability to sort of lead with purpose I think was very important with respect to really deriving transformational change. Yeah that's an amazing perspective. I just had a chance to listen in a small room to the CEO and the chairman of the board for Marriott Corporation and they're

18:57celebrating their 100th birthday next year. And many most US companies don't make it to 100. And so it was it was fascinating both of them were asked to what do you attribute this and they said both of them with energy it was about their people. They focused on their people and everything came back to the employees the people that worked there the people that they have to motivate. Do you find something similar in government? I do. I actually take you know oftentimes you'll hear people say people the most important asset in an organization and there's an element of truth that but I also think that leadership is probably the most important aspect attribute in organization because if you have the right leaders and you're using a framework like I mentioned you're going to be really focused on getting good people in the organization and those people will thrive. I think the thing that you find certainly in government is that federal employees are very mission driven and they are committed and they you know there's a lot of discussion about you know what

20:02really motivates people intrinsic versus extrinsic you know motivators and I really do believe that you know when you really get a high performing organization regardless of as private sector or public sector it's going to be those intrinsic things which are going to actually drive employees to do great things and so setting up those right working conditions to remind people how important they are to actually invest in their development to actually give them good feedback you know one of the things that is really important in an organization is if you really care about an employee and you really want to see them develop you have to tell them not only good things you have to tell them things they have to work on and I think you need to set up an environment and we add a saying which is feedback as a gift and and assume noble intent intent so that when someone gives you feedback your first reaction shouldn't be defensive it should be let me make sure I can really understand why I'm getting feedback and what I can do about that you know I think of a story from a book called radical

21:08candor which the author had gone out and spent a lot of time recruiting a new executive in the organization and thought they had a perfect match they got to six months and the executive was struggling and they ultimately fired the executive and at the Exinterview the she had turned to the executive and he said well I really was someone who had told me earlier on what I wasn't doing well and I tell that story because I think it sort of says that if you're not giving good feedback to people you spent all this money on recruiting someone all this time and we know it takes a lot of time to bring people on board and if you're not giving them the benefit of that you're not giving regular feedback to someone about what they can do better then you potentially have a failure and now you have another vacancy that you have to fill which is very costly and expensive so I think you need to have an I think there's another element of that which is in a high performing organization if people are comfortable raising their hand when something's not going right and in in my world large scale operations and what we did every day something doesn't go right

22:12it's just inevitable and the issue within a well performing high performing organization is that people will raise their hand and say we have a problem and we need to fix it and the leadership is receptive to that and says okay what do we need to do and then after the problem is solved you have an obligation to go back and do lessons learned do action learning to see hey what could we have done differently how could we have avoided that problem so that you have a learning organization it's not just that you're comfortable communicating and have trust in the organization that you can communicate openly but also that you're learning as you go along every day to improve your operations the very first podcast we had was Cutler Dawson who was Admiral and the Navy charge of the enterprise carrier and the fleet in the beginning of Desert Storm and then he went on to run Navy Federal the world's largest credit union and was fascinating to hear you because

23:13he talked he used an example of a problem they had on deck on air with airplanes on the carrier and it was pretty serious accident that happened his culture was exactly what you said you've got to talk whether you're at fault or not whether you're partly at fault it doesn't matter we have to have an honest conversation about this and that doesn't mean there weren't consequences but at the same time that honesty has to be front and center it really is true and I think that I think that you raised an interesting point which I think sometimes the word accountability has a negative connotation you're going to be held accountable but also but but I would have it in a different way which is we're accountable for high performance and we're accountable to each other right to make sure that we can deliver on our mission and that's a positive attribute along the way and I think when when organizations take that seriously the collaboration the teamwork the openness the feedback but they also have a culture of accountability that says we do things well we're going to actually be successful

24:16of what we do and we all have a commitment to doing that I think you're really a high performing organization you've been listening to a preview edition of Lessons in Leadership to hear the rest of this conversation and all past episodes subscribe to Lessons in Leadership wherever you get your podcasts.